Bending to public pressure, state House and Senate committees agreed Monday to repeal the Public Land Development Corp.

Lawmakers had voted overwhelmingly two years ago to create the PLDC and lure private developers to projects on underused state land. But public fury over the PLDC’s broad exemptions from land use regulations, and a backlash against overdevelopment in the islands, have made defending the state agency political poison.

The committee action Monday was the first step in the legislative process but sent an unambiguous signal that the PLDC will not survive in its present form.

The House Water and Land Committee and the House Finance Committee not only agreed to repeal the PLDC, but also killed the Abercrombie administration’s proposal to establish a new development authority for harbors and parks. The administration’s 21st-century schools initiative, which involves developing underutilized public school land to generate revenue to modernize schools, was put off by the House committees until Friday. Senators have advanced a pilot project at a few public school properties.

Rep. Cindy Evans (D, Kaupulehu-Waimea-Halaula), chairwoman of the House Water and Land
Committee, said she was responding to public criticism that the harbors and parks authority was too similar to the PLDC, even though it did not have the same exemptions from land use regulations.

“It really was a strong message that, right now, people aren’t trusting,” said Evans, who had held a five-hour public hearing on PLDC-related legislation Saturday. “I think we need, as legislators, to listen to our constituencies statewide. And I think we heard it loud and clear in the hearing.”

Evans said the Abercrombie administration could propose the harbors and parks authority again in the future. “It can come back,” she said. “The good ideas can always come back, and there’s next year.”

William Aila, director of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, who had been promoting the harbors and parks authority as an alternative to the PLDC, was disappointed. “Very disappointed, because we thought that it laid out a very attractive alternative which took into consideration all of the negative testimony against any PLDC bills,” he said.

While the House had indicated over the weekend that it would move a PLDC repeal, the action in the Senate on Monday was unexpected.

Sen. Malama Solomon (D, Kaupulehu-Waimea-North Hilo), chairwoman of the Senate Water and Land Committee, had said she would not hear a PLDC repeal and would instead wait to see what was approved by the House.

But Solomon and Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz (D, Wheeler-Wahiawa-Schofield), chairman of the Senate Economic Development, Government Operations and Housing Committee, agreed Monday to advance a PLDC repeal.

Solomon and Dela Cruz, who have supported the PLDC as a tool for economic development, held a hearing on a draft bill that would have repealed exemptions for the PLDC and several other state agencies. The senators wanted to show that many state agencies, such as the Hawaii Community Development Authority and the Hawaii Tourism Authority, have regulatory exemptions similar to the PLDC yet have not drawn the same visceral public reaction.

“That’s the point we’re trying to make,” Solomon said.

THE PLDC has become a punching bag for many environmental, progressive and labor interests with grievances against the Abercrombie administration and certain state lawmakers seen as too open to development. Often lost in the PLDC debate is that it was the Department of Land and Natural Resources that asked for the exemptions because the department considered the land use regulations barriers to improving harbors, parks and schools.

After conferring with other senators, Solomon and Dela Cruz decided to move a PLDC repeal and leave the larger discussion over exemptions for later. A few senators who had been frustrated by Solomon’s earlier pronouncement that she would not hear a repeal bill were suspicious when Solomon and Dela Cruz called for a vote.

“Could I get some clarification on why we’re doing it this way instead of what was announced a week or so ago, that we’re going to wait for a clean House bill to come over?” asked Sen. Russell Ruderman (D, Puna), a freshman who has backed a PLDC repeal. “Can I get some clarification on that, please?”

“Because things change,” said Sen. J. Kalani English (D, Molokai-Lanai-Upcountry Maui-Hana).
“We had the hearing,” Dela Cruz said. “We’re responding.”

The Senate’s version of the PLDC repeal will need to go before the Senate Ways and Means Committee, while the House version moves to the full House.

“People were very upset about exemptions,” Solomon said afterward. “So I thought that this was a good exercise for us to revisit all of these exemptions, because our hope is to get a more integrated approach into how we’re going to move into the new day or the new economy.”